Monday, December 10
5:08 P.M.
United Nations, Manhattan
4 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
The crowd on the roof screamed and ran, a deadly stampede in the narrow, crowded space, and Lyle saw at least one man go down as the terrified people swarmed over him. There was really only one place to go—behind the elevator housing—and Lyle was carried along with the crowd, struggling to keep his feet and desperate to catch a glimpse of Lilly. Was she hurt? Was she hit with whatever lotion the unseen attackers were throwing? Was it ReBirth, or just a generic lotion being used to scare them? A stray bullet punched straight through the floor in front of him, clipping the shin of a man in a suit. Lyle stopped in his tracks, was bowled over from behind, and went down.
A foot planted itself on Lyle’s back, then another on his outstretched arm. He curled into a ball, feeling two more errant stomps on his midsection, trying desperately to shield his head with his arms. He screamed in pain when a high-heeled shoe planted itself solidly on his calf muscle. The woman tripped and went down. A burst of gunfire roared through the air, no longer muffled by the building, and Lyle knew the fight had reached the roof. He rolled to the side and fell from a ledge, his heart in his throat as he imagined all thirty-nine floors flying past him in a rush, but it was barely a foot down. He’d fallen into a low gutter that ran around the edge of the roof, and cowered there in the darkness, hoping the attackers wouldn’t see him.
“Get them up here,” said a voice, and Lyle couldn’t help himself: he uncovered his head and looked up.
It was Susan, in a black combat vest, armed with holstered guns and a squeeze bottle of lotion in each hand. A group of similarly dressed people behind her—not just an angry mob but a well-armed paramilitary force—hustled two bound captives out of the stairway. Lyle couldn’t see their faces, but they wore standard police uniforms; they hadn’t come from the UN compound, but outside somewhere. Why would they bring them up here? he wondered.
And whose DNA is in those bottles?
One of the rebels saw him and squirted a long blast of ReBirth toward his face. Lyle twisted away and scrambled to his feet, shedding his contaminated suit coat behind him as he ran; he didn’t think the lotion had touched his skin. The far end of the building was a chaos of screaming and shoving, too many people crammed violently into a space too small to hold them. The crowd had wrapped around the back side of the elevator housing and started to flow back toward the first side of the building again, but a group of rioters with guns and lotion blocked them off. Lyle felt a hand grip his arm like a vise, fingernails biting deep into his flesh, and turned to see not Cynthia but Lilly, her eyes wide with fear.
“We’re gonna die,” she said.
“I think it might be something worse,” said Lyle.
The revolutionaries clambered up a ladder to the top of the elevator housing, and Susan appeared above them on the rim of the roof. She sprayed her bottle of lotion onto the crowd, packed too tightly to move or dodge. Lyle cringed, ducking low with Lilly to avoid the spray of ReBirth. Ira/Moore caught a thick bead of it on his ear and screamed like a child, trying desperately to get it off. With so much lotion in the crowd they were contaminating each other now, squealing like pigs in a slaughterhouse.
“You’re the only leaders the world has left,” said Susan. “If anyone can get the word out, it’s you.”
“Our own countries have forgotten us!” shouted Tanzania, and got a face full of ReBirth for his trouble.
“The countries of the world are convinced that ReBirth can solve their problems,” said Susan. “You need to take this message back to them, and you have four weeks to do it. ReBirth is not the answer, it is the problem.”
“You think we don’t know that?”
Another squirt of lotion.
“Even here,” said Susan, “at the end of everything, you’ve been talking about using the lotion again. Using it more. Trying to save a world that will only be saved when you. Stop. Screwing. It. Up.” Every word brought another spray of white lotion. She spoke to her followers. “Bring them up.”
The revolutionaries muscled the bound prisoners onto the makeshift stage of the elevator housing, and Lyle got his first good look at them. It was the same two cops he’d seen before, officers Woolf and Luckesen, still in their uniforms and looking like they hadn’t changed in weeks. ReBirth had apparently been working on them the entire time, for their faces were darker, their foreheads more sloped, and their brows more prominent. Their posture was wrong, almost simian, and hair had begun to grow on almost every inch of exposed skin. Lyle realized too late what they were turning into, and the realization took all the strength from his limbs; he clung to Lilly’s shoulder like a child on the edge of a fathomless pool.
“Monkeys,” he said out loud. He looked up. “You’re turning us into monkeys.”
Susan extended her lotion bottle, ready to squeeze a blast of chimpanzee DNA in his face like she’d done with the others, but stopped at the last minute. “How long have you been a Lyle?”
“Forty-two years,” he said softly. “It’s me, Susan.”
Her face was twisted halfway between happiness and anger. “You did this.”
“You and I both did it,” he said. “You know we didn’t mean to.”
The sound of gunfire echoed over the roof, and the noise seemed to snap her back out of whatever brief reverie had caused her to pause. Susan’s face resolved into a hard, cruel expression Lyle had never seen before. “Don’t blame me.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” said Lyle.
She raised the lotion bottle again, but her chest blossomed in a spray of red blood and she collapsed to the roof, tumbling off the edge of the elevator housing onto the frightened crowd below. Her plastic bottle burst at the impact, spraying out lotion like a ReBirth grenade.
Someone was shooting, dozens of someones, and the roof erupted in screaming again, people pushing and shoving and trying to get away, trying to find shelter from the lotion, trying to wipe it off on the only thing they had, which was each other. Lyle and Lilly pressed themselves to the farthest fringes of the group, doing everything they could to avoid the lotion.
The revolutionaries were shooting at the other end of the roof, and Lyle could see that more UN soldiers had appeared there, fighting their way up from below and taking the rioters from behind. He thought he caught a glimpse of General Blauwitz, but he was too busy ducking the violent mob to see clearly.
“This way,” said Lilly, and pulled him toward the west side of the elevator housing, and the narrow walkway that ran between it and the edge of the roof. Susan’s body, and the circle of ReBirth around it, had created a small clearing at the wall, and Cynthia was already crouching there, pulling something from her purse. Two revolutionaries stood at the corner, firing down the walkway to the soldiers on the far side and ignoring the frothing mob behind them.
Lyle stared at Susan’s body, too shocked to know how he felt.
“There’s an access hatch to the elevator shaft,” said Lilly. “I saw it when we ran through here before.”
“And a shootout between it and us,” said Lyle, trying to force himself out of shock. “No good.”
“So we get rid of them,” said Cynthia. She pulled a small handgun from her purse, clicked off the safety, and shot the two revolutionaries in the head. “There.”
Lyle gripped the wall for support. “I’m going to go back into shock now.”
“You carry a gun?” asked Lilly.
“You don’t?” asked Cynthia.
“If we’re going to go, let’s go,” said Lyle, and dove around the corner heedless of the gunfire. He found the access hatch and kicked it open; the door tumbled down into a bottomless black shaft.
“We need some delegates or it’s no good going anywhere,” said Cynthia, scanning the crowd for anyone important enough to save. “They’re our ticket to safety in Virginia.” A group of staff advisers and secretaries were crowding toward them, eager to escape through the hatch, but she held them off with her pistol. Lyle looked to the other end of the roof and saw soldiers and revolutionaries and men in suits all locked in battle. A new wave of revolutionaries boiling up from the staircase pushed the soldiers back, and Lyle found himself face-to-face with General Blauwitz and the delegate from Mexico, both armed with assault rifles.
“This building’s lost,” shouted Blauwitz. He saw the access hatch. “Get as many delegates as you can and make for the basement. There are tunnels into the city.”
“Already on it,” said Lyle, and nodded toward Cynthia, who had filtered the most important people out of the group trying to enter the walkway. She’d managed to collect Samoa, China, and India. Lyle crouched at the access hatch, wincing as a stray bullet clanged against the wall above his head, and offered the opening to Lilly. “Ladies first.”
“You’re damn right,” said Cynthia, pushing past Lilly and climbing into the hole. “If any of you bastards stepped in ReBirth I don’t want to get it on my hands.” She started down, and without her to hold them off the crowd surged into the narrow space, clamoring to escape through the hatch. Many of them were covered with lotion. Lyle helped Lilly in next, then followed after, easing in backward to the cold metal rungs of the maintenance ladder. He clung to the bars, not looking down, moving one rung at a time and trying not to think of the thirty-nine-story drop below him.
China came in above him, and after him another, but in the darkness Lyle couldn’t see who it was. He hoped it was another of the delegates. He continued down, one rung after another, remembering how hard it was to climb all these floors in the first place and wishing that they could have had this showdown on a lower floor. He looked up, nearly three floors now, and saw a long line of people on the ladder with a pale square of moonlight at the top. There were shouts, and a scream, and a body came tumbling past him. He couldn’t see if it was a man or a woman. It thumped loudly on something close below him, and he heard another shout of surprise from Lilly. He ventured a look down, praying she hadn’t been knocked from the ladder, and saw instead that she and Cynthia were standing on the roof of an elevator. The body had landed on the ceiling hatch they’d been trying to open.
Lyle hurried down the last few rungs and helped move the body aside, touching it gingerly in case it was contaminated with the chimpanzee lotion. It was a man in a suit, and when they managed to open the ceiling hatch light flooded out to reveal him as the corpse of Estonia.
“Ambassador Rebane,” said Cynthia. “You’re in the way.” There was a gap in the iron framework that led to the neighboring shaft, and she shoved him through it. He disappeared almost instantly into the darkness. The Chinese delegate had reached them by now, and India close behind. “This should be the thirty-fifth floor,” said Cynthia. “Let’s go.” Lyle and China each grabbed one of her arms and helped lower her into the elevator car, and as she ran to the control panel they lowered Lilly in after her. The delegate from Mexico joined them next, and as Lyle and Russia helped India through the opening Samoa reached the bottom of the ladder behind them.
“Who’s next?” asked Lyle.
“The general is after me,” said Samoa. “And after that I don’t know. One of the delegate’s assistants, but I don’t recognize the language.”
“Tell the general to jump,” shouted Cynthia. “I’m pretty sure this thing works.”
“She can’t be serious,” said Mexico, grabbing a cable.
“General, jump!” Lyle shouted quickly. “She’s always serious!” A chorus of pleading screams answered back, and two black forms detached from the ladder and fell through the air. The general fell only a few feet; the man above him fell much farther, and broke his ankle with an audible snap as he landed. The third person up on the ladder jumped, as well, but a moment too late, for Cynthia hit the button and the elevator launched itself down as the latecomer was still falling. He fell faster than the elevator, but only just, and caught up with them five stories later with a sickening crunch that broke the roof of the car. Lyle and Samoa both slipped through the sudden gaps in the structure, trapping their feet and legs in the twisted metal.
The elevator stopped and the doors slid open, only to be immediately strafed with gunfire. Lyle was still wedged in place, trying to extricate his foot without slicing it open on the metal edges, and couldn’t see a thing. He heard a few quick shots that could have been Cynthia’s gun, and General Blauwitz and the Mexican delegate used the moment to drop through the hatch and return fire with their heavier rifles. Lyle strained against the metal, feeling it tear through his pants and lacerate his skin. The Chinese delegate helped him, then did the same for Samoa. The man with the broken ankle lay beside them, moaning softly in a language none of them could understand. Lyle looked through the open hatch and saw splashes of blood all over the elevator car, but he couldn’t tell who they belonged to. The gunfire moved farther away, retreating down a hall, and Cynthia called up for Lyle to hurry. Lyle lowered himself into the car, finding the Indian delegate’s body slumped and bloody in the corner.
“They got him as soon as the doors opened,” said Cynthia. Lyle looked around wildly, and saw Lilly in the hallway beyond, holding a looted submachine gun with wide, terrified eyes. He walked toward her, but Cynthia shouted behind him. “Who the hell is that?” Lyle looked back to see the Samoan delegate lowering the broken assistant through the hatch.
“I don’t know who he is,” said Samoa. “Just grab him.”
“Leave him,” said Cynthia. “He’s not important enough to slow us down.”
“I’m not leaving him,” said Samoa. “And I am important enough to slow you down, so grab him.” Cynthia didn’t move, so Lyle caught the dangling man and held him while Samoa dropped down after. Samoa slung the now-unconscious man over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and they moved out into the hall. Lilly looked at Lyle with wide eyes; she didn’t seem capable of firing her gun effectively, but didn’t seem interested in giving it up, either. They were in some kind of service tunnel beneath the complex, and met up with Blauwitz and Mexico around the next corner.
The general made a quick count of their group. “This is all we have?”
“India didn’t make it,” said Lyle. “There might be more on the ladder, but I guess we left them behind.”
“All the other delegates got hit by the monkey lotion,” said Cynthia. “There was no point waiting.” She gave Samoa a pointed glance. “Nobody else was worth saving.”
“None of you were hit?” asked the general.
Lyle shook his head. “I don’t think so.” They checked each other quickly, and found nothing.
“There are tunnels into the city,” said Blauwitz. “We’ll have to go up to the surface streets eventually, but we can at least bypass this particular mob.”
“And run straight into another one,” said Cynthia. “We need to go out the back and into the river—we can find a boat and get out of here.”
“‘Out back’ is FDR Drive,” said Russia. “There are boats across the river, but nothing on this side for blocks in either direction.”
“I don’t think we could swim the river in this weather,” said Samoa.
“Definitely not with that dead weight on your shoulder,” Cynthia snapped.
“Boats are a good idea,” said China, “but not in the East River. The closest dock is the UN school, fourteen blocks at least, and if there’s nothing there we’ll have to go all the way down to the Brooklyn Bridge.”
“If we’re going that far we’d be better off crossing the island,” said Mexico. “The Hudson’s got boats all over the place.”
“The Chelsea Piers,” said Lyle quickly. “Cynthia’s got a boat there.” He was pleased with himself for remembering it, but the predatory triumph on her face made him feel like she’d somehow manipulated him into announcing her own plan for her.
“It’s called Mummer’s Hoard,” she said proudly. “Big enough for all of us; gassed up and ready to go.”
“The tunnels, then,” said Blauwitz, and they followed him through a maze of hallways. The UN complex was far bigger than Lyle had guessed—far bigger, he suspected, than the delegates had guessed, as well. Every now and then they heard distant shouts or screams or gunshots, but the farther they walked the more the sounds faded away, and after a series of locked metal doors they disappeared completely. At last Blauwitz led them up a long staircase and through another locked door. The building they’d entered let them out onto Forty-Second Street, almost to Second Avenue. Lyle looked back toward the river to see that the UN building had caught on fire.
“Keep a low profile,” said the general. “We don’t want to attract any attention.”
“Then we should drop the half-dead body,” said Cynthia.
“Maybe people will think it’s an all-dead body and get scared away,” said Lilly. Her voice was shaky, Lyle noticed, but her eyes were grim and determined.
They walked quickly, trying to look purposeful rather than scared. It was nearly seven now—not late, but it was December and the sky was already pitch black. With power out in so much of the city the buildings had become tall, dark monoliths that blocked out the stars. Lyle felt like a rat in the bottom of a deep black maze, scurrying through the narrow tunnels and hoping none of the bigger rats tried to eat him.
Blauwitz led them over a block to Third, to put some distance between them and the mob, and then cut south down the long avenue. A hospital on Thirty-Second was still running on on-site power, and looked to have crowd outside, so they turned on Thirty-Third to avoid it. Here and there they passed other shapes in the darkness, running and hiding as furtively as they were. They traveled south again on Fourth, and the general quickened their pace.
“The Armory’s just down here,” he said, peering ahead. “We might be able to get some help there; a vehicle if we’re lucky, reinforcements at the very least.”
“There’s not enough room on the yacht for that many,” said Cynthia. “We have to get the delegates off, and we can’t risk a mutiny of desperate soldiers.”
“American soldiers don’t mutiny,” said the general, but as they neared the Armory they found it dark and abandoned, the doors chained and the windows barred. “I don’t understand,” he said, rattling the front door. “They should be here.”
“Let’s at least rest,” said Lilly. “We’ve come almost twenty blocks, and some of us don’t have shoes.”
“Then loot something,” said Cynthia. “I’m not dying for your feet.”
“Listen,” said Mexico, holding a finger in the air. They paused, holding their breath, and Lyle could hear it, too—another giant crowd, somewhere nearby, chanting something.
“Just a couple of blocks away,” said the general.
“Madison Square Park,” said China. He shrugged. “Maybe they’re in line at the Shake Shack.”
“Or murdering the Sixty-Ninth Regiment,” said the general. He started jogging west. “Let’s go.”
“Are you crazy?” asked Cynthia. “We’re not going toward it.”
“There might be someone in danger,” said the general.
“That’s exactly my point.”
“This mob’s not looking for us, so we can at least take a peek,” Blauwitz called back over his shoulder. “I’m not letting them hurt any more soldiers.”
They hurried to catch up, Lilly hanging back farther and farther as her bare feet grew more sore. They could see the lights now, giant bonfires in the park that cast massive, dancing shadows on the buildings around them. The chanting grew louder, though they couldn’t tell what the crowd was saying. A single voice with a megaphone was shouting something wild and incendiary in the middle of it all, but Lyle couldn’t understand him, either. “Can anyone hear what they’re saying?”
“It sounds like ‘the bomb,’” said Samoa.
“They’re saying ‘Kuvam,’” said Lilly. “It’s a cult meeting.”
The general paused, halfway to Madison Avenue, listening carefully. After a moment he turned and led them back to Fifth. “We’ll skirt the edges,” he said. “If it’s Kuvam’s people they’re probably not violent, but we don’t want to push it.” They went south again, two more streets to Twenty-Fifth, and saw for the first time the sheer size of the crowd. Lyle gasped. Ahead of them was Madison Square, at one of those massive New York intersections between two normal streets and the sharp diagonal of Broadway, and the cultists had converted the entire thing to an open-air temple. Bonfires covered the ground, lanterns and banners waved from the nearby buildings, and in the midst of it all were Lyles—hundreds of Lyles, thousands of Lyles, standing and bowing and perching on fences and clinging to windowsills and chanting, all of them chanting, the same words over and over: “Kuvam,” and “ReBirth,” and “All is light.” The buildings glowed orange in the flames, and Kuvam himself—reborn like the Phoenix—stood on a bus and preached the gospel of eternal life.
“We’re going around,” said Cynthia stiffly.
“There’s no soldiers in there,” said Blauwitz. “Not in the center or on the perimeter or anywhere. Not in uniform, anyway.”
“I never knew there were so many,” said Samoa. “I mean, I knew, but I … I had no idea.”
“We go around,” said Cynthia again. Her voice was equal parts steel and terror. “Four more streets, eight more streets, however many it takes to never see them again. Down and around and across to the river.” She moved away, and the others followed, but Lyle stayed rooted in place, staring at the chanting Lyles. It was … he didn’t know. He felt a hand on his arm, and turned to see Lilly’s wide eyes staring into his.
Her voice was soft. “What is it?”
“I’m thinking about…” He trailed off, and turned back to face them. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, moving and chanting in unison. “They’re happy. They love what they’re doing. They’ve found something they love, and they’re ready to give their lives for it.”
“Do you want to join them?”
He turned again to look at her, shaking his head. “No, I don’t. That’s the weird thing. They’re all me, and they’re all happy, but I … I don’t want to be a part of it. I wish I did—I wish I had anything in my life that I loved that much. But I don’t. And if they’re me, then…” He gave up talking, and simply watched them.
“Come on.” She turned and walked away, pulling him gently with her hand, and he followed her into the darkness.